New Delhi: Jay Narayan Vyas, who quit BJP earlier this month, joined the Congress party on Monday along with his son Sameer Vyas. 


Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge inducted the 75-year-old former minister into the party in Ahmedabad. Rajasthan Chief Minister and Congress veteran Ashok Gehlot also welcomed him into the party.






Vyas had resigned from the BJP earlier this month. He also recently met former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. In his resignation letter to state BJP president CR Patil, Vyas said, “I have been actively serving the BJP for the last three decades as per the ideology of the party. I am today resigning from the party for personal reasons.”


Vyas was a minister in the BJP government in Gujarat when PM Narendra Modi was the chief minister. However, he lost the 2012 and 2017 Assembly elections from Sidhpur. He had met Gehlot, who is Congress's senior observer for Gujarat elections, in Ahmedabad.


"Vyas, who helped BJP build the party in the state, is being ignored by that party. He had recently met Soniaji, Gehlotji and Gujarat Congress in-charge Raghu Sharma," the party's state unit president Jagdish Thakor said, as quoted by news agency PTI.

 

"We had given him tickets many times despite his repeated defeats. The party has a rule that it would not give a ticket to those who have crossed 75 years of age. Maybe for election candidature or some other reason he might have decided to resign," BJP's state unit chief had said.

 

(With Agency Inputs)